Hugo Award Winners

"Beauty is beautiful because it is doomed to perish!"

"Suddenly, he was weeping. The tears were for the good things that had been or might have been, for the bad things that had been but should not have been."

"Imagination was the great cozener of the past."

"“We’re not that stupid!” “No, but you’re that impulsive. Which is a form of stupidity.”"

"The way is open, comrades, free as Space Alone is free. The only gold is love, A coin that we have minted from the light Of others who have cared for us on Earth And who have deposited in us the power That nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars."

"One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love That fights to keep us rooted in the earth, But also urges us to dare the stars, This irresistible, this ancient power Wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light That burns our roots and leaves us free for Space."

"Though Melville omitted it, Captain Ahab said, "In one sense, Aleister Crowley is lower than whale shit. In another, he's as high as God's hat. The true shaman knows that God's hat is made out of dried whale shit.""

"The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."

"The real heroes, and heroines, are those who deal heroically with the everyday cares of life, though God knows they’ve been multiplied enormously. It’s not the guy who kills a dragon once in his lifetime and then retires that’s a hero. It's the guy who kills cockroaches and rats every day, day after day, and doesn't rest on his laurels until he’s an old man, if then."

"Liquor’s good for one thing. It makes you forget what you’re afraid not to forget."

"Drowned idols swirl like seeds in chaos' wine. Look, Job! Caught Beauty, held to light, now apes A good, now evil, thing — the shifting sign And spectrum of archaic, psychic shapes."

"Let those who think the soul is shallow rail, They must be warned before they dare to leap They'll plunge into the twilight depths where sweep In ceaseless thirst great teeth too swift to fail."

"We too. No wisdom to utter. You've beauty, flux, and terror To tell. So've I. And they're Very hard to mutter Through so much chatter and stutter."

"Oh, I'd reach beyond the comma of you To the invisible phrase, the dangling Omega! No use. No act Of mine or mind denies the ante-cerebellum fact Of furry you, poised fleetingly, bright flex, Black reflex, too leaping for me to ink and fix As period to end what has no period, no, no End..."

"Prometheus, I have no Titan's might, Yet I, too, must each dusk renew my heart, For daytime's vulture talons tear apart The tender alcoves built by love at night."

"Reader, pray that soon this Iron Age Will crumble, and Beauty escape the rusting cage."

"Beauty in this Iron Age must turn From fluid living rainbow shapes to torn And sootened fragments, ashes in an urn On whose gray surface runes are traced by a Norn Who hopes to wake the Future to arise In Phoenix-fashion, and to shine with rays To blast the sight of modern men whose dyes Of selfishness and lust have stained our days..."

"Sawbeaked epitome of bodiless Idea, tossed by gusts of ether, dive Through abstract mists and raid the sea of fact Eat rich strange fish, grow long bright feathers, press Form's flesh around thought's rib, and so derive From the act of beauty, beauty of the act."

"“Perhaps you could tell me how many angels may stand on the point of a pin?”… De Salcedo snorted. “I’ll tell you. Philosophically speaking, you may put as many angels on a pinhead as you want to. Actually speaking, you may put only as many as there is room for. Enough of that. I'm interested in facts, not fancies.”"

"Miles above the Earth we know, Fancy's rocket roars. Below, Here and Now are needles which Sew a pattern black as pitch, Waiting for the rocket's light."

"Can imagination act Perpendicular to fact? Can it be a kite that flies Till the Earth, umbrella-wise, Folds and drops away from sight?"

"Anyway, women are about as mysterious as a tin mine. All you have to do is carry a lantern into the dark places, and you see everything. But men like to think women are the eternally mysterious. That saves men the trouble of asking questions, taking a little time and effort."

"“I don’t believe in women’s intuition,” Sam said. “They’re just culturally conditioned to observe different patterns of action and speech, different gestures and inflections from those men observe. They’re more sensitive to certain subtleties because of this conditioning.”"

"“At least, they tried,” Johnston said. “So did the eunuch in the sheik’s harem.”"

"If you’ve read your history…then you’ll know that the medieval noblemen were notorious for treachery. Their god was Opportunity, no matter how many churches they built for the glory of Church and God. They had all the morals of a hyena."

"“I thought that was just one of the wild tales those visionaries had invented,” Jill said. “I didn’t put any more credence in it than I did in the ravings of Earth prophets. Moses, Jesus, Zoroaster, Mohammed, Buddha, Smith, Eddy, the whole sick crew.”"

"I had the honor to serve at the siege of Arras. Where I received a thrust through the throat, the second of the serious wounds that convinced me, along with all else I had seen of wars miseries and horrors, that Mars was the stupidest of the gods."

"Was destiny anything but chance? Probably. But the odds against this happening on Earth were infinity to one."

"“The trouble with you, Peter—one of the troubles—is you worry too much about other people’s behavior. And you have too high ideals for them, ideals which you yourself don’t try to live up to.” “I know I can’t live up to them, so I make a no pretense,” Frigate said. “But it bothers me that others claim to have these ideals and to be living up to them. If I point out that they aren’t, they get angry.” The little Moor chuckled. “Naturally. Your criticism threatens their self-image. If that were to be destroyed, they, too, would be destroyed. At least, they think so.”"

"The religions of Jesus, Paul, and Buddha had started to degenerate before their founders were cold in their graves. Just as St. Francis’ order had begun corrupting before its founder’s body was rotten."

"Take St. Augustine, for instance. "Asshole” was the only word that fit him. A monster of ego and selfishness. St. Francis was about as saintly as a person could be. But he was undoubtedly psychotic. Kissing a leper’s sores to demonstrate humility, indeed!"

"Peter would find out that that was superstition, a reasoning from effect to cause, totally invalid. It was in a class with the belief that if you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you were sitting in the outhouse, the devil would get you."

"Chance, another word for destiny."

"As for the Bible, it was a book, and all books told the truth in the sense that their authors believed they were writing a kind of truth."

"But he’s sincere. Which doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about."

"You prize rank too highly."

"I, who hated the fat, smug, oily, stinking, ignorant, hypocritical, parasitical priests! And their unfeeling, merciless, cruel God!"

"He looks like he’d be a hellcat in a fight. Tom and I agreed that he was easily the best qualified. But he doesn’t know anything about books, and I need educated people around me. That may sound snobbish, but so what?"

"I do believe that man is a rope between animal and superman. But the superman I'm thinking of isn't Nietzsche's. The real superhuman, man or woman, is the person who's rid himself of all prejudices, neuroses, and psychoses, who realizes his full potential as a human being, who acts naturally on the basis of gentleness, compassion, and love, who thinks for himself and refuses to follow the herd. That's the genuine dyed-in-the-wool superman."

"TV, the worst thing that had happened to the twentieth century. After the atom bomb and overpopulation, of course."

"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in our lousy genes. Or in the failure of one’s conquest of one’s self. The fault, dear Brutus, is in our fear of knowing ourselves."

"“What does that mean?” “I don’t know, but it sounds deep. I’ll think up an explanation later.”"

"Kazz thought that putting a lump on Oskas’ head was very funny. He would have considered it to be even a better joke if the chief had drowned. Yet, among his crewmates, he was as sociable, tender, and compassionate a man as anyone could ask for. He was a primitive, and all primitives, civilized or preliterate, were tribal people. Only the tribe consisted of human beings and were treated as such. All outside the tribe though some might be considered friends, were not quite human. Therefore, they did not have to be treated as if they were completely human."

"Burton thought the man was crazy, though he was discreet enough not to say so. He and his crew had fallen into the hands of fanatics. Fortunately, the god had told Metusael that his worshipers must hurt no one unless it was in self-defense. However, he knew from experience that “self-defense” could mean whatever a person or group wanted it to mean."

"People who believed in Him were deluded. The believers in God might be intelligent, but they were mentally benighted. The gears in that part of the brain which dealt with religion had been put into neutral, and they were spinning. Or the circuit of religion had been disconnected from the main circuit of the intellect. That was a bad analogy. People use their intellect to justify the nonintellective, emotionally based phenomenon called religion. Often brilliantly. But, as far as she was concerned, uselessly."

"“You must not stereotype!” Cyrano cried. “And you are right,” she said. “That is a feeling I loathe, and yet I find myself doing it all the time. However, so often…well, most people are living stereotypes, aren’t they?”"

"Then she warned her self—for the ten thousandth time?—that she must not be as guilty of prejudice as others. Find the facts first and study them before judgment."

"Nightmare in paradise. Or what could have been paradise if so many human beings did not insist on make in a hell of it."

"Many attributed this to a supernatural agency. Many more, among whom was Burton, did not think that there was any agency except an advanced science which accounted for this. There was no need to call in the supernatural. “No ghosts need apply,”—to quote the immortal Sherlock Holmes. Physical explanations sufficed."

"Tell me, is this true or is it just one of those tales that people like to make up to worry others?"